Welcome back to week 12. Today we will consider how Christ was tempted in all things as we are and how that relates to counseling. How are we to think about that as it relates to counseling self and others?

Hebrews 4:15 says He was, “tempted in all things as we are.” Jesus was tempted in all things just like we are, but there is one huge difference with Jesus; He never sinned.^[1] Jesus never sinned because He was God in the flesh.^[2] Sin resonates in our heart because we are fallen creatures, but it had no such place in Christ’s heart. Jesus was, “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” He was tempted because His humanity, but incapable of sin because of His Deity. 

He can, “sympathize with our weaknesses…” He felt the full force of temptation, but never gave into it like we do. By experiencing temptation, Jesus became fully capable of understanding and sympathizing with His human brethren.^[3]

Furthermore, Jesus was the substitutionary perfect Sacrifice who paid for His people’s sin and validated their salvation.^[4] Jesus is the perfect Savior, Sacrifice, and Solution to man’s deadly sin debt. Because of Jesus’ substitutionary death and following resurrection His children have been set free from their slavery to sin.^[5] Salvation literally turns man’s heart from hopeless rebellion against God to hope filled righteousness in Christ.^[6] Salvation does not merely patch man up; it makes him an entirely new and better creature.^[7]

Just as salvation in Christ gives new hope by creating a new creature and implanting His Word into their heart, biblical counseling gives new hope to the struggling saint by bringing that same Word to bare on the heart.^[8] Biblical counseling is the only counseling model in the world that offers true hope to the believer because it is the only model which uses God’s perfect authoritative Word as its counseling source. 

The biblical counselor follows Jesus’ example, through the power of the Holy Spirit and Scripture, to not just patch up what is wrong in a counselee’s life, but to help him make it better than it was before.^[9] Biblical counseling can help the counselee realize how to think and live in light of the truth that the change and salvation he has been afforded by Christ is far more than the loss he suffered in sin.^[10] Like Jesus, biblical counseling does not target behavior modification, rather it seeks heart mortification.   

Lastly, we not only have God’s Word and Spirit to help us live in progressive righteousness, we have God Himself who actually cares about us. Christ cares about our pain and suffering. He experienced the strongest temptation and the greatest trials without submitting to sin. Avail yourself to Him in prayer and take advantage of His wisdom-filled Word. He was tempted, but without sin. He can help you come through temptation, too, and that’s a wonderful reality! 

We hope our short time considering Christology this week was helpful. Lord willing, for the next three weeks, we will be considering some aspects of soteriology. If you aren’t familiar with that term or topic come back next week and find out about it. Until then may the Lord bless you and keep you.

^[1] 1 Pt. 2:22.

^[2] Col. 2:9; Jn. 1:1-4, 14.

^[3] MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1900). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

^[4] 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Jn 3:5; 1 Jn 4:10. The Son validated what the Father initiated, cf. Eph. Chapter 1.

^[5] Rom. 7:14-8:8

^[6] Gen. 6:5; Prov. 19:3; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 9-12.

^[7] 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:20b.

^[8] James 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:16-17.

^[9] Jay E. Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 179-83.

^[10] Rom. 5:20b.